High-Profile California Dentist Sherri Worth Found Negligent in Massive Dental Malpractice Award

In what may be the largest dental malpractice award of its kind (defective crowns and veneers) in California history, high-profile Newport Beach cosmetic dentist Sherri Worth, D.D.S., has been found negligent, and much of her sworn testimony “not believable.”

Orange County/Los Angeles, Calif.

Judge Geoffrey T. Glass of the Orange County Superior Court ordered that an arbitrator’s award be confirmed and that judgment be entered against Dr. Worth in the amount of $641,542. The judgment has been satisfied and paid in full by Dr. Worth.

The opinion awarding the plaintiff this record judgment cited Worth’s “substandard dentistry” and an alarming “pattern of prevarication,” including inaccurate diagnoses, substandard work, altered record-keeping and specific instances of misleading testimony. The judgment has been reported to the California Dental Board which is now reviewing the matter and has authority to take disciplinary action against Dr. Worth’s dental license.

“It is very difficult as a trier of fact to evaluate Defendant Sherri Worth’s testimony when so much of it is evasive, nonresponsive and untruthful,” according to the opinion issued by the arbitrator, who further indicated Worth’s testimony “demonstrated a total lack of candor and was not believable” and was “not credible.”

Based on testimony by experts and treating dentists, the opinion found Dr. Worth diagnosed dental conditions that were “not present” and had not performed certain dental procedures as claimed. Further, the opinion noted substandard work by Dr. Worth, including crown “overpreparation,” which led to irreversible harm to the plaintiff.

The opinion also found Dr. Worth’s record keeping highly suspect, concluding: “The office chart is not reliable [and] has been rewritten in substantial part; critical evidence has been lost or destroyed; and the defendant’s testimony is not credible.”

The opinion further stated Worth’s “defensiveness in the record defies belief.”

The Plaintiff sought Dr. Worth for a consultation related to one chipped upper front tooth and a gummy smile. Dr. Worth, however, told the Plaintiff that she needed 22 teeth to be treated after misdiagnosing conditions which did not exist and/or require invasive dental treatment.

Ultimately, virtually all of Dr. Worth’s dental treatment required replacement; eight root canals needed to be performed and two gum surgeries were required to repair Dr. Worth’s substandard dentistry. The pain endured by the Plaintiff as a result of Dr. Worth’s negligence care was described in the opinion as “hard to imagine”.

The San Francisco Law Offices of Edwin J. Zinman, DDS represented the Plaintiffs.

Dr. Worth presently is named as a defendant in another dental malpractice action alleging negligent dentistry in the Orange County Superior Court.